Monday, July 16, 2012

“Russ Douthat is a Fruit Fly”

My mother, an op-ed columnist, used to say (with a
twinkle in her eye), “Never let the facts get in the way of a perfectly good
opinion.” But at least she, a fierce
liberal, accepted the ultimate authority of reality over ideology. Russ
Douthat’s analysis of liberal Episcopalians, found in the July 14 NY Times,
sails beyond the realm of facts altogether, and comes to illustrate the brave
new world of conservative commentary, where rhetoric creates the impression of
truthiness long enough to reproduce itself into the 24-hour news cycle, facts be
damned.

Yes, that’s right, I said it: Russ Douthat is a fruit fly.

Diana Butler Bass has written a devastatingly factual
reply to Mr. Douthat, which will enjoy only a fraction of the coverage Mr.
Douthat has received. Thus, once again,
the conservative argument has won the struggle for ideological survival in the
artificial habitat that is our national consciousness. Well played, sir.

But the more troubling element of Mr. Douthat’s column
is his bizarre premise: that Christians should base their theology on what is
popular, rather than on what is true. His preoccupation with liberal vs. conservative popularity (the facts of which he misrepresents) implies that if only Episcopalians were more conservative, they would be more popular, and therefore we have erred. He even defends the Vatican’s investigation of the nuns as motivated primarily out of a
concern for institutional self-preservation: “Catholic hospitals across the country are
passing into the hands of more bottom-line-focused administrators, with
inevitable consequences for how they serve the poor.” Wow. This is his breathtakingly cynical reasoning: If
those nuns would only preach a conservative gospel (contrary to their consciences) - a gospel in which women are properly
subordinate to men - then their convents would blossom with devout and properly
respectful sisters, and the hospitals would be saved.

Funny: all this time I thought the argument was over a
question of truth – whether or not women
are, in fact, equal to men. But no, it seems to be an argument from the most base form of pragmatism.

Thus the conservatives seek to change the
subject. And this laughable argument is made with high-minded seriousness in the most prestigious news outlet in the world. Huh. If only it had integrity.

This is what happens when conservatives can no
longer defend the substance of their ideology.
The Vatican can no longer plausibly argue that women are not equal to
men; very few American Catholics care what the bishops think about birth
control; the number of Catholics who use condoms and get abortions are about
the same as the national average. The
Catholic Church is beginning to look ever more like the great and terrible Oz, desperately
twirling valves and pulling levers behind the curtain, hoping against hope to
forestall the inevitable day when its people will see past the curtain.

Rather than do the hard work of changing the
institution in order to conform to the truth of things, conservatives are creating truthy arguments of smoke and mirrors, in
this case appealing to the myth that conservative theology is more
attractive to the American people than liberal theology. Fact one: it is not (see Butler Bass). Fact two: since when do Christians proclaim a
Gospel based on institutional self-interest?
(Answer, only when they are desperate and have lost their way.)

So congratulations, Mr. Douthat: you won the 24-hour
news cycle battle. The bad news for you
is that you have exposed the hollow and desperate rhetoric of 21st Century
American conservatism for what it is: a mad attempt to change the subject. Speaking on behalf of millions of happy and
spiritually alive Episcopalians, I say to you, and the Vatican, the following:
if we have to choose between a theology that we think is true, and a theology
that your church cynically (and wrongly) believes might be popular, we’ll take
the former, any day. And this is what we think is true: women are equal
to men. Period. Gays are equal to straights. Period.

Ahead of every other denomination in Christendom, the Episcopal Church has demonstrated its willingness to proclaim this truth and accept the consequences. And the consequences are on our side: it
just so happens that God favors truth. When my congregation proclaimed our truth, loud and
clear, we gained at least four new members for every member we lost. But this is not why we proclaim that
truth. We proclaim it because it happens
to be true. And nothing on God’s green
earth will get us to turn our backs on what we know is true. Period.

Maybe that makes us dinosaurs. But I’d rather be a dinosaur than a fruit
fly, any day of the week.

7 comments:

Thank you. Douthat - most ridiculous NYT choice since Bill Kristol. So tired of liberals apologizing for living, apologizing for liberalism. Stand up people. I'm sick of these lazy bullies. So many good liberal writers and theologians, and we get Douthat foisted on us. Why I cancelled my Times subscription.

Great article...but the Episcopal Church is not ahead of any other denomination as awesome as it may be! The history of the United Church of Christ suggests the Episcopal Church is standing on the shoulders of a denomination that has always chosen truth over popularity. So glad to have you all on board! You bring the incense and bishops will bring the complete and utter chaos bound in covenant by the One we serve. Let's build the kingdom together...